The IT giant telegraphed cuts to come on its last earnings call in January when it reserved $1 billion to cover workforce reductions in the coming year. At that time analysts estimated that would mean cuts of 10,000 to 15,000 jobs out of IBM’s total 400,000 workforce.

Since then, IBM sold its its X86 server unit to Lenovo so there were bound to be reductions in hardware personnel. IBM said 7,500 of those Technology & Systems group employees would be offered jobs at Lenovo.

An IBM spokesman said the company “continues to rebalance its workforce” to meet the changing needs of customers. He cited increasing investment in IBM’s new Watson unit ($1 billion); building up its cloud “footprint” $1.2 billion); Platform-as-a-Service capabilities (another $1 billion.) and in nanotechnology (no figure provided). These investments will bring “hundreds of new jobs” to IBM’s home state of New York, he said.